The first measure of naval
warfare undertaken by the Administration, and the one
which it carried out for four years with the most
sustained effort, was one that seemed at the outset in
the highest degree impracticable. A navy of thirty-five
available modern vessels, while it might be expected to
produce substantial results by concentrated attacks at
isolated points on the seaboard, or in engagements with
the enemy's ships-of-war, counted for almost nothing as
an effectual barrier to commerce along 3,000 miles of
coast. To undertake such a task, and to proclaim the
undertaking to the world, in all its magnitude, at a
time when the Navy Department had only three
steam-vessels at its immediate disposal in home ports,
was an enterprise of the greatest boldness and
hardihood. For the days of paper blockades were over;
and, though the United States were not a party to the
Declaration of Paris, its rule in regard to blockade was
only the formal expression of a law universally
recognized. "Blockades, to be binding, must be
effective--that is to say, maintained by a force
sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the
enemy;" or, according to the general interpretation
given to the treaty, sufficient to create an evident
danger in entering or leaving the port. In this sense,
the Government understood its responsibilities and
prepared to meet them.

It was
natural, in view of the inadequacy of the force, that
foreign governments should look at the measure with
suspicion, and should watch its execution with careful
scrutiny. Commercial communities abroad doubted the
seriousness of the undertaking, because, in their
ignorance of the energy and the resources of the
Government, they doubted its feasibility. An effective
blockade on such a scale was a thing unprecedented, even
in the operations of the foremost naval powers of the
world. It seemed to be an attempt to revive the cabinet
blockades of half a century before, when England and
France laid an embargo upon each other's coasts, and
captured all vessels at sea whose destination was within
the proscribed limits; and when Spain interdicted
commerce with the northern colonies in South America,
and as a matter of form, kept a brig cruising in the
Caribbean Sea.

No time was
lost in announcing the intentions of the Government. On
the 19th of April, six days after the fall of Sumter,
the President issued a proclamation declaring the
blockade of the Southern States from South Carolina to
Texas. On the 27th the blockade was extended to Virginia
and North Carolina. The terms of the proclamation were
as follows:

"Now therefore I,
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States...have further deemed it advisable to set on
foot a blockade of the ports within the States
aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United
States and of the Law of Nations in such case
provided. For this purpose a competent force will be
posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels
from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view
to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach or
shall attempt to leave any of the said ports, she
will be duly warned by the commander of one of the
blockading vessels, who will endorse on her register
the fact and date of such warning, and if the same
vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the
blockaded port, she will be captured, and sent to
the nearest convenient port for such proceedings
against her, and her cargo as prize, as may he
deemed advisable."

Upon the issue
of the proclamation, the Government immediately found
itself confronted with the question whether the movement
at the South should be regarded as rebellion or as war.
From the legal point of view the acts of the insurgents
could be looked upon in no other light than as armed
insurrection, "levying war against the United States,"
and under the constitutional definition, the actors were
guilty of treason. But the extent of the movement, its
well-defined area, and, above all, its complete
governmental organization, made it impossible to put the
legal theory into practice; and almost from the
beginning hostilities were carried on precisely as in a
regular war. The Government, however, in its dealings
with foreign powers always asserted stoutly that the
movement was purely an insurrection, and that those in
arms against it were rebels, and not belligerents.

This position,
though it involved occasional inconsistencies, was
maintained with considerable success, except in relation
to the status of prisoners, and in those cases where the
operations of the war affected foreign interests. The
question first arose in reference to the blockade.
Blockade, in the ordinary sense, is purely an act of
war. It means the closing of an enemy's ports, and the
capture of all vessels, neutral or hostile, attempting
to enter with knowledge of the blockade. It enables a
belligerent to seize vessels on the high seas bound for
a blockaded port. It stands on the same footing as the
right of search, which is exclusively a war right; and
like the right of search, it is a benefit to the
belligerent, and a hardship to the neutral.

Even after the
President's proclamation, which was to all intents a
belligerent declaration, and after the blockade had been
set on foot, the Government still held to its theory
that the parties to the contest were not belligerents,
and that rebellion was not in any sense war. In his
report of July 4, 1861, at the special session of
Congress, the Secretary of the Navy referred to the
blockade in these terms:

"In carrying into
effect these principles, and in suppressing the
attempts to evade and resist them, and in order to
maintain the Constitution and execute the laws, it
became necessary to interdict commerce at those
ports where duties could not be collected, the laws
maintained and executed, and where the officers of
the Government were not tolerated or permitted to
exercise their functions. In performing this
domestic municipal duty,(1) the property and
interests of foreigners became to some extent
involved in our home questions, and with a view to
extending to them every comity that the
circumstances would justify, the rules of blockade
were adopted, and, as far as practicable, made
applicable to the cases that occurred under this
embargo or non-inter-course of the insurgent States.
The commanders of the squadron were directed to
permit the vessels of foreigners to depart within
fifteen days, as in cases of actual effective
blockade, and then vessels were not to be seized
unless they attempted, after having been once warned
off, to enter an interdicted port in disregard of
such warning."

In referring
to the blockade in these words, the Navy Department
clearly had in mind a measure of internal
administration; and this domestic application of a
belligerent right was excused on the ground of a desire
to extend every possible comity to foreigners. But in
putting forward this plea, the Secretary failed to see
that the application of the rules of blockade to a
domestic embargo, so far from extending comity to
foreigners, abridged their rights, and imposed on them
liabilities and penalties which no domestic embargo of
itself could produce. It was not the foreign trader, but
the belligerent cruiser that gained by the adoption of
the rules of blockade. A government has the right to
close its own ports, and to impose heavy penalties upon
all who attempt to enter; but it cannot by virtue of any
such measure search and seize foreign vessels on the
high seas, even though bound for the embargoed port. To
do this it must establish a blockade. In other words, it
must wage war, and the two parties in the contest must
become belligerents.

Although it
may have been the intention of the Executive in July to
regard the blockade as a domestic embargo, it soon gave
up the idea in practice. Neutral vessels were searched
and captured at sea. Prizes were sent in for
adjudication, and condemned for breach of blockade and
for carrying contraband, "in pursuance of the laws of
the United States and the Law of Nations in such case
provided," and not in pursuance of any law imposing
civil forfeitures or penalties for violation of a
domestic embargo. The forms of examination and procedure
were those of belligerent prize-courts; and the
decisions expressly recognized a state of war, and could
be founded on no other hypothesis.

Under these
circumstances, the complaint against the British
Government of having done an unfriendly act in
recognizing the rebels as belligerents, had no very
serious foundation. The Queen's proclamation of
neutrality, published on May 13, was a statement that
hostilities existed between the Government of the United
States and "certain States styling themselves the
Confederate States of America,'' and a command to
British subjects to observe a strict neutrality between
the contending parties. Its form and contents were those
commonly found in the declarations of neutrals at the
outbreak of war. The annoyance it gave to the Government
and the elation it caused at the South were due to the
fact that it appeared somewhat early in the struggle,
and that it was the first recognition from abroad of the
strength and organization of the insurgent Government.
As a matter of law, Great Britain had the right to
declare herself neutral, especially after the blockade
was proclaimed, as blockade is a purely belligerent act.
Her offence, reduced to its exact proportions, consisted
in taking the ground of a neutral before the magnitude
and force of the insurrection were such as to justify
it. But the hopes raised at the South by the
proclamation led to the prevalent belief throughout the
Union that it was dictated by unfriendly motives; while
the undisguised sympathy for the Southern cause shown by
the upper classes in England tended to strengthen the
impression and to aggravate the wound.

The inception
of the blockade was somewhat irregular. Ordinarily a
blockade may begin in one of two ways; either by a
public announcement coupled with the presence of a force
before the blockaded port; or by stationing the force
without an announcement. The first is a blockade by
notification; the second is a blockade in fact. As
breach of blockade only becomes an offence when
accompanied by knowledge, actual or constructive, of the
existence of the blockade, it is a question of some
importance when the blockade begins and how knowledge of
it is to be acquired. In a blockade by notification,
knowledge is held to have been acquired when sufficient
time has elapsed for the notice to have been generally
received; and after this time a neutral vessel, by
sailing for the blockaded port, has committed an offence
and incurred a penalty. With a blockade that is purely
de facto, on the other hand, knowledge must be obtained
on the station, and neutrals have a right to sail for
the port and to be warned off on their arrival.

Whether a
blockade is initiated as a blockade by notification or
as a blockade de facto, the indispensable condition of
its establishment is the presence of a force at the
blockaded port. Actual notice of the fact can never
precede the existence of the fact. The President's two
proclamations did not therefore constitute actual
notice, because at the date of their issue there was not
even a pretence that the blockade existed. Nor do they
appear to have been so intended. The idea was rather to
publish a manifesto declaring in a general way the
intentions of the Government, and then to carry them out
as promptly as circumstances would permit.

The blockade
therefore began as a blockade de facto, not as a
blockade by notification. During the summer of 1861
vessels were stationed at different points, one after
another, by which the blockade at those points was
separately established. Notices, of a more or less
informal character, were given in some cases by the
commanding officer of the blockading force; but no
general practice was observed. When Captain Poor, in the
Brooklyn, took his station off the Mississippi, he
merely informed the officer commanding the forts that
New Orleans was blockaded. Pendergrast, the commanding
officer at Hampton Roads, issued a formal document on
April 30, calling attention to the President's
proclamation in relation to Virginia and North Carolina,
and giving notice that he had a sufficient force there
for the purpose of carrying out the proclamation. He
added that vessels coming from a distance, and ignorant
of the proclamation, would be warned off. But
Pendergrast's announcement, though intended as a
notification, was marked by the same defects as the
proclamation. The actual blockade and the notice of it
must always be commensurate. At this time, there were
several vessels in Hampton Roads, but absolutely no
force on the coast of North Carolina; and the
declaration was open to the charge of stating what was
not an existing fact.

The importance
of these early formalities arises from the fact that the
liability of neutral vessels depends on the actual
existence of the blockade, and upon their knowledge of
it. Until the establishment of the blockade is known,
actually or constructively, all vessels have a right to
be warned off: When the fact has become notorious, the
privilege of warning ceases. In the statement about
warning, therefore, the President's proclamation said
either too much or too little. If it was intended, as
the language might seem to imply, that during the
continuance of the blockade--which, as it turned out,
was the same thing as during the continuance of the
war--all neutral vessels might approach the coast and
receive individual warning, and that only after such
warning would they be liable to capture, it conceded far
more than usage required. If it meant simply that the
warning would be given at each point for such time after
the force was posted as would enable neutrals generally
to become aware of the fact, it conveyed its meaning
imperfectly. In practice, the second interpretation was
adopted, in spite of the remonstrance's of neutrals; and
the warnings given in the early days of the blockade
were gradually discontinued, the concessions of the
proclamation to the contrary notwithstanding. The time
when warning should cease does not appear to have been
fixed; and in one instance at least, on the coast of
Texas, it was given as late as July, 1862. The fact of
warning was commonly endorsed on the neutral's register.
In some cases the warnings had the same fault as
Pendergrast's proclamation, in being a little too
comprehensive, and including ports where an adequate
force had not yet been stationed. The boarding officers
of the Niagara, when off Charleston, in May, warned
vessels off the whole Southern coast, as being in a
state of blockade, though no ship-of-war had as yet
appeared off Savannah; and the Government paid a round
sum to their owners in damages for the loss of a market,
which was caused by the official warning.

The concession
of warning to neutrals at the port, if it had continued
through the war, would have rendered the blockade to a
great extent inoperative. Vessels would have been able
to approach the coast without risk of capture, and to
have lain about the neighborhood until a good
opportunity offered for running past the squadron. In
other words, the first risk of the blockade-runner would
have been a risk of warning, instead of a risk of
capture; and the chances in his favor would have been
materially increased. The courts, as well as the
cruisers, disregarded the proclamation as soon as the
blockade was fairly established, and held, in accordance
with English and American precedents, that warning was
unnecessary where actual knowledge could be proved.

It is probable
that when the blockade was proclaimed it was thought
that the measure could be adequately carried out by
stationing a small squadron at the principal commercial
ports, supplemented by a force of vessels cruising up
and down the coast. The number of points to be covered
would thus be reduced to four or five on the Atlantic
and as many more on the Gulf. Had this expectation been
realized, the blockade would have been by no means the
stupendous undertaking that it seemed to observers
abroad. Acting upon such a belief, the Government
entered upon its task with confidence and proceeded with
despatch. The Niagara, which had returned from Japan on
April 24, was sent to cruise off Charleston. The
Brooklyn and Powhatan moved westward along the Gulf.
Before the 1st of May, seven steamers of considerable
size had been chartered in New York and Philadelphia.
One of these, the Keystone State, chartered by
Lieutenant Woodhull, and intended especially for use at
Norfolk, was at her station in Hampton Roads in
forty-eight hours after Woodhull had received his orders
in Washington to secure a vessel. The screw-steamer
South Carolina, of eleven hundred and sixty-five tons,
purchased in Boston on May 3, arrived off Pensacola on
June 4; and the Massachusetts, a similar vessel in all
respects, and bought at the same time, was equally
prompt in reaching Key West.

Notwithstanding these efforts, the blockade can hardly
be said to have been in existence until six weeks after
it was declared, and then only at the principal points.
When the Niagara arrived off Charleston on the 11th of
May, she remained only four days; and except for the
fact that the Harriet Lane was off the bar on the 19th,
there was no blockade whatever at that point for a
fortnight afterward. The British Government called
attention to this fact, and suggested that a new
blockade required a new notification, with the usual
allowance of time for the departure of vessels; but the
State Department did not regard the blockade as having
been interrupted. Savannah was blockaded on the 28th of
May. In the Gulf, Mobile and New Orleans received notice
on the 26th from the Powhatan and the Brooklyn; and a
month later the South Carolina was at Galveston. At the
principal points, therefore, there was no blockade at
all during the first month, and after that time the
chain of investment was far from being complete. Indeed
it could hardly be called a chain at all, when so many
links were wanting. Even Wilmington, which later became
the most important point on the coast in the operations
of the blockade-runners, was still open, and the
intermediate points were not under any effective
observation.

As liability
for breach of blockade begins with the mere act of
sailing for the blockaded port, the distance of this
port from the point of departure becomes an important
consideration to the blockade-runner. The longer the
distance to be traversed the greater the risk; and some
method of breaking the voyage must be devised, so that
as much of it as possible may be technically innocent.
The principal trade of the South during the war was with
England; and it became an object to evade liability
during the long transatlantic passage. For this purpose,
all the available neutral ports in the neighborhood of
the coast were made entrepôts for covering the illegal
traffic.

There were
four principal points which served as intermediaries for
the neutral trade with the South; Bermuda, Nassau,
Havana, and Matamoras. Of these Nassau was the most
prominent. Situated on the island of New Providence in
the Bahamas, it is only about one hundred and eighty
miles in a straight line from the coast of Florida.
Florida, however, was not the objective point of the
leading blockade-runners. It had neither suitable
harbors nor connections with the interior. The chief
seats of commerce on the Eastern coast were Savannah,
Charleston, and Wilmington. The run to these points from
Nassau was from five hundred to six hundred miles, or
three days, allowing for the usual delays of the
passage. For such trips, small quantities of coal were
needed, which gave great room for stowage of cargo.
There was no great depth of water at Nassau, which was
an advantage to the blockade-runners; and the cruisers
generally took their station off Abaco Light, fifty
miles away. New Providence was surrounded by numbers of
small islands, over whose waters, within a league of the
shore, the sovereignty of a great power threw a
protection as complete and as effective as that of guns
and fortifications. A vessel bound to Nassau from one of
the blockaded ports must have been hard-pressed indeed
if she could not find a refuge. The navigation among the
islands was dangerous and difficult, the channels were
intricate, and reefs and shoals abounded; but skilful
pilots were always at the command of the
blockade-runners.

Nassau was a
place of no special importance before the war. Its
inhabitants lived chiefly by fishing and wrecking. But
with the demands of the moment, it suddenly became a
commercial emporium. Its harbor was crowded with
shipping. Its wharves were covered with cotton-bales
awaiting transportation to Europe, and with merchandise
ready to be shipped for the blockaded country.
Confederate agents were established here, and took
charge of the interests of their Government in
connection with the contraband trade. Money quickly
earned was freely spent, and the war, at least while it
lasted, enriched the community.

Bermuda
shared, though in a less degree, the profits of the
blockade-running traffic. Its connection was closest
with Wilmington, which was six hundred and seventy-four
miles distant, and which was the favorite port of the
block-sale-runners, especially in the last year of the
war. In the Gulf, Havana had a similar importance. The
run to the coast of Florida was only a little over one
hundred miles. But Key West was inconveniently near, the
Gulf blockade was strict, and after New Orleans was
captured, the trade offered no such inducements as that
on the Atlantic coast. Nevertheless it is stated by
Admiral Bailey, on the authority of intercepted
correspondence of the enemy, that between April 1 and
July 6, 1863, fifty vessels left Havana to run the
blockade.

The situation
of Matamoras was somewhat peculiar. It was the only town
of any importance on the single foreign frontier of the
Confederacy. Situated opposite the Texan town of
Brownsville, on the Rio Grande, about forty miles from
its mouth, and in neutral territory, it offered peculiar
advantages for contraband trade. The Rio Grande could
not be blockaded. Cargoes shipped for Matamoras were
transferred to lighters at the mouth of the river. On
their arrival at Matamoras they were readily transported
to the insurgent territory. Accordingly, in 1862, the
place became the seat of a flourishing trade. The sudden
growth of the city was a notorious fact, as was also the
cause that led to it. Yet the Government was unable to
put a stop to the traffic, unless evidence could be
brought to show that the cargoes were really destined
for the enemy. Several vessels bound for Matamoras were
captured and sent in, but in most of the cases the prize
court decreed restitution, on the ground that a neutral
port could not be blockaded, and therefore there could
be no breach of blockade in sailing for it. Even in the
case of the Peterhoff, which was captured near St.
Thomas under suspicious circumstances, and whose papers
showed Matamoras as her destination, only the contraband
part of the cargo was condemned.

When the
advantage of a neutral destination was fully understood,
it became the practice for all the blockade-runners out
of European ports to clear for one or the other of these
points, and upon their arrival to wait for a favorable
opportunity to run over to their real destination.
Nobody, could be deceived by this pretence of an
innocent voyage; and the courts, looking only at the
final destination, condemned the vessels when there was
evidence of an ultimate intention to break the blockade.
This decision rested upon an old principle of the
English prize-courts, known as the doctrine of
continuous voyages, according to which the mere touching
at an intermediate port of a vessel engaged in an
illegal voyage could not break the continuity of the
voyage or remove the taint of illegality. Hence, if a
vessel cleared from Liverpool with the intention of
merely touching at Nassau, and then proceeding to
Charleston, and if this intention could be proved from
the papers, the character of the cargo, and the
examination of persons on board, the two voyages were
held to be one, and condemnation followed.

In order to
meet the new difficulty, a new device was adopted.
Cargoes were sent out to Nassau, and were there
transshipped, sometimes directly, from vessel to vessel,
in the harbor, sometimes after being landed on the
wharf; and thence were transported in a new conveyance
to the blockaded port. Return cargoes were transshipped
in the same way. This had a double advantage. It made
the continuity of the transaction much more difficult of
proof, and it enabled the capitalists engaged in the
trade to employ two different classes of vessels, for
the service for which each was specially adapted. For
the long voyages across the Atlantic heavy freighters
could be used, of great capacity and stoutly built; and
the light, swift, hardly visible steamers, with low
hulls, and twin-screws or feathering paddles, the
typical blockade-runners, could be employed exclusively
for the three days' run on the other side of Nassau or
Bermuda. But here again the courts stepped in, and held
that though a transshipment was made, even after landing
the cargo and going through a form of sale, the two
voyages were parts of one and the same transaction, and
the cargo from the outset was liable to condemnation, if
the original intention had been to forward the goods to
a blockaded port. Nor did the decisions stop here. As
all the property, both ship and cargo, is confiscated
upon proof of breach of blockade, it was held that the
ships carrying on this traffic to neutral ports were
confiscable, provided the ultimate destination of the
cargo to a blockaded port was known to the owner. In the
words of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, "The
ships are planks of the same bridge, all of the same
kind, and necessary for the convenient passage of
persons and property from one end to the other."

The adoption
of this rule by the highest courts in the United States
raised a loud outcry on the part of those interested in
the traffic, trod was severely criticised by implicists
abroad, especially by those who favored, in general, the
continental view of the laws of war. The United States
were accused of sacrificing the rights of neutrals,
which they had hitherto upheld, to the interests of
belligerents, and of disregarding great principles for
the sake of a momentary advantage. In truth, however,
the principle adopted by the court was not a new one,
though a novel application was made of it to meet a
novel combination of circumstances. It had formerly been
applied to cases where neutrals, engaged in illegal
trade between two ports of a belligerent, had endeavored
to screen the illegality of the voyage by the
interposition of a neutral port, with or without the
landing of goods and the employment of a new conveyance,
in these eases Lord Stowell held that the continuity of
the voyage was not broken, unless the cargo was really
imported into the common stock of the neutral country.
That the principle had not been applied to blockades was
due to the fact that circumstances had never called for
it, as the practice of breaking a blockade had never
before been carried out on such a scale, with such
perfect appliances, and by the use of such ingenious
devices. The really difficult question before the court
was as to the sufficiency of the evidence in each case.
It was to be expected that every artifice in the nature
of simulated papers, pretended ownership, false
destination, and fictitious transfers would be adopted
to escape liability; and it was the business of the
court to penetrate all these disguises, and to ascertain
the real character of each transaction. It is probable
that in no case was injustice done in brushing aside and
disregarding the various ceremonies, more or less
elaborate and artificial, that were performed over
blockade-running cargoes at Nassau and Bermuda; and it
must often have happened that the ingenuity of shipper's
was rewarded by a decree of restitution for the want of
technical evidence, when there was no moral doubt as to
the vessel's guilt.

As a last
resort, the blockade-running merchants adopted an
expedient so original and so bold that it may almost be
said to have merited success. As cargoes from Liverpool
to Nassau ran a risk of capture, the voyage was broken
again, this time not by a neutral destination, but by
one in the country of the very belligerent whom the
trade was to injure. Goods were shipped to New York by
the regular steamship lines, to be carried thence to
Nassau, and so to find their way to the blockaded
territory. It was supposed that the United States would
not interfere with commerce between its own ports and
those of a neutral. This expectation, however, was not
well-founded. The Government of the United States,
although federal in its organization, was not so
impotent in regard to the regulation of trade as was
that of Great Britain in enforcing the neutrality of its
subjects; and if action could not be taken through the
Courts, it could be taken through the custom-houses. As
soon as it was discovered at New York that the trade
with Nassau and Bermuda was assuming large proportions,
instructions were issued to collectors of customs in the
United States to refuse clearances to vessels which,
whatever their ostensible destination, were believed to
be intended for Southern ports, or whose cargoes were in
imminent danger of falling into the hands of the enemy;
and if there was merely ground for apprehension that
cargoes were destined for the enemy's use, the owners
were required to give ample security.

The
instructions were perfectly general in character, naming
no particular port or country. The agents of the
blockade-runners, however, styling themselves merchants
of Nassau, adopted a tone of righteous indignation, and
actually had the effrontery to complain of this "unjust
discrimination'' against what they ingenuously called
the trade of the Bahamas. As if, indeed, the Bahamas had
had any trade, or Nassau any merchants, before the days
of blockade-running! They succeeded, however, in
persuading Earl Russell to take up the diplomatic
cudgels in their behalf; but from the long
correspondence that followed, the English Government,
being clearly in the wrong, derived little satisfaction,
and a stop was put to the traffic.

The character of the
blockade changed materially as the war went on. At first
the prevailing idea seems to have been that its object
was to lint a stop to legitimate trade, and that this
object was secured by the official declaration. The
squadrons seem to have been employed rather to comply
with the requirements of international law, and to make
the prohibition binding upon neutrals, than as being
themselves the agency by which the prohibition was to be
enforced, and without which it was only so much waste
paper. This idea had some foundation in view of the fact
that from the beginning, though the blockading force was
then inconsiderable, the regular course of trade at the
Southern ports was actually interrupted, neutrals for a
time respecting the proclamation, or being satisfied to
receive their warning and to go elsewhere. In place of
the regular commerce, however, a contraband trade grew
up, little by little, which, beginning with any
materials that came to hand, and carried on chiefly by
people along the coast, gradually grew to considerable
proportions. Then, and then only, was the true character
of the blockade recognized, and measures were taken, by
increasing the force and by perfecting its organization,
to make the watch so close as really to prevent egress
and ingress. But by this time the capital embarked in
the business was so large as to secure the construction
of vessels built especially for the purpose, beautifully
adapted to the work, and far more difficult to capture.
Therefore, while the efforts of the blockaders were
redoubled, the difficulties before them were vastly
increased. The old traditional idea of a blockade,
maintained by a few large vessels moving up and down
before a port, at a distance, gave place to the entirely
novel practice of anchoring a large number of small and
handy steamers in an exposed position close to the bar
at the entrance of the blockaded harbors; and the
boldness with which, after the first six months, men
kept their vessels close in with the shore and manfully
rode out the gales at their anchors--a thing which
seafaring men, as a rule, had regarded as impossible,
and which would have appalled the stoutest captains of
former times--showed as clearly as the actual
engagements the real stuff of which the navy was made.

As to the
legal efficiency of the blockade after the first six
months, there can be no question; and by the end of the
second year its stringency was such that only
specially-adapted vessels could safely attempt to run
it. If proof of its efficiency was needed, it could be
found in the increased price of cotton and in the
scarcity of manufactured goods at the South. In the last
year it became as nearly perfect as such an operation
can be made. Taking its latest development as a type, it
is probable that no blockade has ever been maintained
more effectually by any State; and it is certain that no
State ever had such a blockade to maintain.

Apart from its
enormous extent, it had four characteristics which mark
it as wholly unprecedented: in the peculiar formation of
the shore, which gave almost a double coastline
throughout, penetrated by numerous inlets, giving access
to a complicated network of channels; in the vicinity of
neutral ports friendly to the blockade-runners; in the
cotton-monopoly of the South, which made the blockade a
source of irritation to neutrals; and finally, but the
most important consideration of all, in the introduction
of blockade-running vessels propelled by steam.

The success of
this undertaking, so unprecedented both in its magnitude
and difficulty, can best be judged by the results. The
number of prizes brought in during the war was 1,149, of
which 210 were steamers. There were also 355 vessels
burned, sunk, driven on shore, or otherwise destroyed,
of which 85 were steamers; making a total of 1,504
vessels of all classes. The value of these vessels and
their cargoes, according to a low estimate, was
thirty-one millions of dollars. In the War of 1812,
which has always, and justly, been regarded as a
successful naval war, the number of captures was 1,719.
But the War of 1812 was waged against a commercial
nation, and the number of vessels open to capture was
therefore far greater. Of the property afloat, destroyed
or captured during the Civil War, the larger part
suffered in consequence of the blockade. Moreover, in
the earlier war, out of the whole number of captures,
1,428 were made by privateers, which were fitted out
chiefly as a commercial adventure. In the Civil War the
work was done wholly by the navy; and it was done in the
face of obstacles of which naval warfare before that
time had presented no example or conception.

As a military
measure, the blockade was of vital importance in the
operations of the war; and it has been commonly said
that without it hostilities would have been protracted
much longer, and would have been far more bitter and
bloody than they were. Its peculiar importance lay in
the isolation of the Southern States and in their
dependence upon the outside world for the necessaries of
life. The only neutral frontier was along the Rio
Grande; and the country, for many miles on both sides of
the boundary, offered few facilities for trade or
transportation. All supplies must come from the
seaboard; and the purely agricultural character of
Southern industry made supplies from abroad a necessity.
Had the position of the two opponents been reversed, and
an efficient blockade maintained against the Northern
ports, it would have told with far less severity than at
the South.

Besides the
exclusion of manufactured goods, and especially of
munitions of war, which was one of the prime objects of
the blockade, its second and equally important object
was to prevent the exportation of cotton, with which at
this time the Southern States supplied the world. The
amount of floating capital at the South was never large;
land and slaves were the favorite forms of investment;
and the sale of cotton was therefore the main source of
income. When exportation was cut off, the Government was
deprived of its revenues for the war, and the people of
the very means of existence. It was the common
impression at the South that the rest of the world, and
especially England, had too great an interest in the
cotton supply to tolerate a prohibition on exportation;
and it was believed, or at least hoped, that the
blockade would prove a fatal measure for its
originators, by the injury it would work abroad. The
injury was not over-estimated; and it doubtless had its
effect upon the sympathizes of the interested foreign
state. Lancashire, the great centre of the cotton
manufacture, was compelled to close its mills; and the
distress that resulted among the operatives may be
estimated by the fact that, two years after the war had
begun, no less than ten millions of dollars had been
disbursed by the Relief Committees. But the British
Government, whatever may have been its disposition, had
at no time a plausible pretext for intervention; and the
blockade continued to be enforced with increased rigor.

As the war
went on, the naval forces, securing the cooperation of
small bodies of troops, gradually obtained a foothold at
various points and converted the blockade into a
military occupation. These points then became the
headquarters of the different squadrons--ports for
rendezvous, refitment, and supply, for the "repairs and
coal" that were forever drawing away the blockaders from
their stations at critical moments. By the spring of
1862 all the squadrons were well provided in this
respect, though some of the centres of occupation were
occasionally recovered by the enemy. Especially on the
coast of Texas, blockade and occupation alternated at
the different Passes throughout the war, partly in
consequence of the want of troops to hold the occupied
points. Curiously enough, too, these centres of
occupation became in a small way centres of
blockade-running--Nassaus and Bermudas on a diminutive
scale. Norfolk, Beaufort in North Carolina, Hilton Head
with its sutler's shops, Pensacola, and New Orleans each
carried on a trade, prosperous as far as it went, with
the surrounding coast. At New Orleans, the blockade of
Lake Ponchartrain was kept up long after the city was
taken, not to prevent access to the port, but to capture
the illicit traders that cleared from it; and Farragut
was obliged to remonstrate sharply with the Collector
for the readiness with which papers covering the trade
were issued by the custom-house.

Source: "The Blockade
and the Cruisers" (Chapter 2) by James Russell Soley